BASE64-encoded images can create extremely large GPX files

1.4k · September 4, 2012

Hi,

in the last months, I have repeatedly seen cache listings, which have images directly embedded in the HTML code instead of links to external (e.g. hosted on geocaching.com) image files. In the HTML source, it looks like this:

<img src="data:image/jpeg;base64,/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEBLAEsAAD.....

Depending on size and number of images, this can create extremely large GPX files for single cache listings. 1 Megabyte or more are common, while "typical" GPX files have only a few dozen kilobytes. These super-large GPX files are unusable by many geocaching programs and devices (e.g. my Garmin eTrex 30 freezes, when I try to open the "Cache Description" for such a big GPX). Also, if you have a PQ which contains several (or even _many_) listings with such embedded images, the PQ's GPX files grow even larger - several 100 MB would be possible for a 1000-cache-GPX! I doubt that such huge GPX files can be properly handled by typical software and equipment.

All this is of course not really a bug of the GC.com website. Listings with embedded images load significantly slower, but apart from that they are displayed ok. However, as I said, many external tools and devices have significant problems with such listings. Therefore I'd like to ask for a modification in the "HTML sanitizer" ;-) of the cache listing editor. Even now you cannot enter arbitrary HTML code in your listing (e.g. things like <script> are automatically filtered out). I think it would be a very good idea to forbid embedded BASE64 data in <img> tags as well.

Thank you in advance for your consideration!

Best regards

Andreas

Munich, Germany

5.2k · September 5, 2012

All this is of course not really a bug of the GC.com website.

Actually, it is. All you have to do is select an image on your hard disk, open the new Cache Submission Form using Firefox, and paste. Voila! Several megabytes of Base64 data imbedded right into your cache description. :yikes:

This doesn't appear to happen when using Internet Explorer. I haven't tried it in other browsers.

September 5, 2012

Do you have an example cache (or two) that you could give me? I'd like to test this on my Garmin Oregon 450.

1.4k · September 5, 2012

Do you have an example cache (or two) that you could give me? I'd like to test this on my Garmin Oregon 450.

GC3VR1R creates a GPX file of 2.4 MB. I've logged "Needs Maintenance", asking the owner to change the embedded images to normal links.

But it would be interesting to see what an Oregon does with the GPX. After all, it has a significantly higher performance than my eTrex 30 :rolleyes: .

2.1k · September 5, 2012

We are aware of this issue and have scheduled it to be fixed in the next web release.

November 1, 2012

We are aware of this issue and have scheduled it to be fixed in the next web release.

Anything new about this. Since september there had been some downtimes without fixing this issue.

7.4k · November 1, 2012

This issue has been fixed in that it is not possible to use the cache submission form to create such bloated listings anymore, but it is not able to "unwrite" those listings that have already been created this way. Those listings should be reported (either here, to your local reviewer, or to contact@geocaching.com) so that we can manually fix them.

November 1, 2012

This issue has been fixed in that it is not possible to use the cache submission form to create such bloated listings anymore, but it is not able to "unwrite" those listings that have already been created this way. Those listings should be reported (either here, to your local reviewer, or to contact@geocaching.com) so that we can manually fix them.

Am I the only one missing things like these in some regular "Release Notes" posts? I know you don't intend to post them anymore (http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=303613) for minor things, but for the ones interrested in the site's progress this would be very helpful.

November 1, 2012

Those listings should be reported (either here, to your local reviewer, or to contact@geocaching.com) so that we can manually fix them.

Thank you for the update. Here I had a look in my local DB, and found 52 entries (LongDesc LIKE '%data:image%'), sorted descending by last date

Hope, this is a little help for you (and us all)

7.4k · November 1, 2012

That's a bigger list than we are prepared to manually deal with. World-wide I'm sure there are many more. Please report these to the cache owners themselves and, if that does not get a response, your local reviewer. If you run into caches that are causing breakage of a browser or GPS receiver, please email the problematic cache to contact@geocaching.com.

November 3, 2012

Muhaha,

what did you think? Did you really mean there are only a few caches affected?

I already contacted ALL of the owners in my database using this kind of images. Result: 3 changed Listings of 38.

I think it's the job of Groundspeak to fix this, I just contacted my local reviewer with this list:

GC3FP0T

GC2PZQB

GC38FAM

GC3E9WR

GC3QCN5

GC3VTF0

GC3QEQE

GC37X4E

GC370ZN

GC2Y36X

GC2Y4YE

GC3R790

GC3VNBN

GC3N31Q

GC3WW4F

GC3WW18

GC3WXJ7

GC3WW1V

GC3WW3T

GC3WXMR

GC3WW2Z

GC3F7AH

GC3QJJP

GC3EA7A

GC3RQA0

GC3N0F3

GC3T3VA

GC3WQZE

GC3WR01

GC3Q7Y7

GC3C7F4

GC36E87

GC3REGE

GC3VXX1

GC3X88Y

Edited November 3, 2012 by BY-Pega

1.4k · November 3, 2012

Am I the only one missing things like these in some regular "Release Notes" posts? I know you don't intend to post them anymore (http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=303613) for minor things, but for the ones interrested in the site's progress this would be very helpful.

No you are not the only one missing release notes. What is minor is depends on the viewer. Someone who has adopted a work around for a bug may never learn that the work around is no longer required. I do not understand what value is gained from keeping changes from the customer. Previous updates have generated much discussion and often complaints, but those have largely been focused on feature changes not bug fixes.

Also no amount of beta testing can catch all problems as you cannot replicate all possible hardware and software combinations. Publishing the changes will allow more rapid feedback about the changes. Yes staff time is required to prepare the list of changes for publication but that is only a trivial summary transcription of the the change management control documents.

Please bring back the release notes.

November 6, 2012

Muhaha,

what did you think? Did you really mean there are only a few caches affected?

I already contacted ALL of the owners in my database using this kind of images. Result: 3 changed Listings of 38.

I think it's the job of Groundspeak to fix this, I just contacted my local reviewer with this list:

GC3FP0T deaktiviert

GC2PZQB deaktiviert

GC38FAM deaktiviert

GC3E9WR vom Owner bearbeitet

GC3QCN5 vom Owner bearbeitet

GC3VTF0 deaktiviert

GC3QEQE vom Owner bearbeitet

GC37X4E deaktiviert

GC370ZN deaktiviert

GC2Y36X deaktiviert

GC2Y4YE deaktiviert

GC3R790 deaktiviert

GC3VNBN

GC3N31Q

GC3WW4F

GC3WW18

GC3WXJ7

GC3WW1V

GC3WW3T

GC3WXMR

GC3WW2Z

GC3F7AH

GC3QJJP

GC3EA7A

GC3RQA0

GC3N0F3

GC3T3VA

GC3WQZE

GC3WR01

GC3Q7Y7

GC3C7F4

GC36E87

GC3REGE

GC3VXX1

GC3X88Y

November 16, 2012

My List with base64 Caches has about 300 entries. Can I post it here?

5.2k · November 17, 2012

My List with base64 Caches has about 300 entries. Can I post it here?

That's a bigger list than we are prepared to manually deal with. World-wide I'm sure there are many more. Please report these to the cache owners themselves and, if that does not get a response, your local reviewer. If you run into caches that are causing breakage of a browser or GPS receiver, please email the problematic cache to contact@geocaching.com.

November 17, 2012

My List with base64 Caches has about 300 entries. Can I post it here?

That's a bigger list than we are prepared to manually deal with. World-wide I'm sure there are many more. Please report these to the cache owners themselves and, if that does not get a response, your local reviewer. If you run into caches that are causing breakage of a browser or GPS receiver, please email the problematic cache to contact@geocaching.com.

Probably the best is to ignore this caches, I dind't get any answer on my Email to our local reviewer I wrote on November 3rd.

Obviously Groundspeak doesn't care about this problem.

In my area there had been two new published caches with this kind of images even after it got fixed as the post of Moun10Bike indicates.

7.8k · November 17, 2012

This issue has been fixed in that it is not possible to use the cache submission form to create such bloated listings anymore...

This issue has been fixed for the old submission form, but the new submission form still accepts base64 images. I was able to copy-and-paste a JPG file directly into the description field, and it remained there after I saved the cache. Moun10Bike, you can see the result at the unpublished cache GC41DZB.

I dind't get any answer on my Email to our local reviewer I wrote on November 3rd.

Have you contacted the individual cache owners first as suggested by Moun10Bike? You should do that before involving a reviewer.

Edit to add: @BY-Pega: While we're talking about broken code, I'd like to point out that you have some broken HTML in your signature that's affecting the "MultiQuote" and "Reply" buttons on all of your posts.

Edited November 17, 2012 by The A-Team

November 19, 2012

This issue has been fixed in that it is not possible to use the cache submission form to create such bloated listings anymore...

This issue has been fixed for the old submission form, but the new submission form still accepts base64 images. I was able to copy-and-paste a JPG file directly into the description field, and it remained there after I saved the cache. Moun10Bike, you can see the result at the unpublished cache GC41DZB.

I dind't get any answer on my Email to our local reviewer I wrote on November 3rd.

Have you contacted the individual cache owners first as suggested by Moun10Bike? You should do that before involving a reviewer.

Edit to add: @BY-Pega: While we're talking about broken code, I'd like to point out that you have some broken HTML in your signature that's affecting the "MultiQuote" and "Reply" buttons on all of your posts.

I allready mentioned that I contacted all users before contacting the reviwer (this can be read in post #11 here).

As I got no signature in this Board I don't know what you mean.

November 19, 2012

November 19, 2012

As mentioned, the signature field in my options is empty:

5.2k · November 19, 2012

Try putting just a space in your signature field and save that and maybe it will fix it.

7.4k · November 19, 2012

Try putting just a space in your signature field and save that and maybe it will fix it.

Any change he made will fail to take until he logs out of the forums and back in. I just did that for him and it has corrected his signature.

November 30, 2012

Here are some I found in my Home query

GC3K1QH

GC1MTMM

GC3N4EC

GC3N4EQ

GC3N4ER

GC3N4EX

GC3N4EZ

GC3N4F1

GC3N4F3

GC3N4F4

GC3N4F7

GC3N4F8

GC3N4FB

GC3N4FD

GC3N4FE

GC3N4FG

GC3N4FH

GC3N4FJ

GC3N4FM

GC3N4FN

GC3N4FQ

GC3N4FR

GC3N4FT

GC3N4FX

GC3N4G0

GC3N4G1

GC3N4G2

GC3N4G5

GC3N4GC

GC3N4GD

GC3N4GK

GC3N4GM

GC3N4GP

GC3N4GR

GC3N4GT

7.8k · November 30, 2012

Here are some I found in my Home query

<snip>

All but one of those are by the same cacher. Have you tried contacting them? As mentioned earlier, posting your list here won't get anything done. You need to contact the owners of the caches, and if that doesn't work, contact a reviewer.

November 30, 2012

I did, but up to now no reaction.

(Many Users answer, but they don't know how to fix the problem. It would be great to have a guide which all users can understand...)

BASE64-encoded images can create extremely large GPX files

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